Nan has done such an amazing job maintaining the substance and quality of Philofaxy that she has, inadvertently, encouraged me to indulge my innate laziness. That’s right. Nan is an enabler. Why go through the trouble of posting, when Nan will do such a lovely job in my absence? Why go through the trouble of trying to improve Philofaxy, when Nan is improving it at a pace I could never rival? Why not, instead, watch five straight seasons of 24 on DVD, because somehow you only recently realized it’s a really good show? Why not, instead, decide that you also like The L Word, and you have to watch all the old seasons of it, too? Why not, instead, spend four weeks writing a novel, so that you can say you participated in and successfully completed National Novel Writing Month? Why not, instead, spend your time playing with this silly little thing:
Why not, indeed.
My Filo-life is humming along just fine. I haven’t bought any new Filofaxes. I soldier on with my A5 Chocolate Cross as my primary data repository, and my Personal Chocolate Cross as my repository of financial data.
You may recall The Great Red Domino Experiment, in which I tested the following hypothesis: A tiny, pocketable Filofax will improve my productivity and overall happiness level. The early evidence, unhappily, did not bear out the hypothesis. But, lo, I have found a new use for the Red Domino. (The following might sound a little hoity-toity, and for that I apologize. I’m not hoity-toity at all. I eat frozen burritos for dinner more often than I like to admit. I buy store brands. I never pay retail (Unless I really want the retail-priced thing (really, really want).).) I record wine tasting notes in the Red Domino. Now, before you say, “Philofaxer, between your spendy leather planners and expensive bottles of wine, you’re nothing but an elitist with whom I share no affinity! I condemn thee!”, let me just say that I am new to the world of wine and still struggling to find words for my wine tasting notes other than “good,” “really good,” and “um, red.” I usually taste a wine and then right down some of those words. Then I look it up on the internet and find that I should have written, “Slightly oaky, with notes of apple, fennel, and beef brisket, and a finish that recalls the black truffles in the woods on the left bank of the Rhone, near that cute little bistro south of Arles.”
The other thing is that I am against paying more than ten dollars for a bottle of wine.
Anyway, the Red Domino is getting a little use now.
I also engaged in a bit of Filo-personalization. My son, who will be six months old on Thursday (holy crimoly), recently had “professional” photos taken at his daycare. Being the duty-bound parents we are, we bought some. The place threw in some small stickers of our monkey, for free. I stuck one on the inside, lower left corner of my main Filofax. Now, he faces me whenever I have the Filofax on my desk. (That corner is visible even when the pages are splayed open.) It’s really cute, too. I had planned to take a picture of it and include it in this post. Then I forgot my camera. So I planned to use the camera on my cell phone. Then I forgot my cell phone. So I’ll post it later.
Maybe. It depends on what’s on TV.